Hands in pockets, warmth from legs helping to keep him grounded. Shaking, silence threatening to tear him apart. Again. The stone in his pocket was cold, so cold even though it was warm from body heat. Warm, from hands and from legs, from the friction of his fingers, rubbing it smoother by the hour.

Deep breath, shuddering, stuttering. Teeth grinding together as life flashes around him. Pieces and bits and particles of lives, of his life and what it was, what it used to be.

Eyes closed, trying to hold the floodgates, but failing. Hot tears, liquid pain and humiliation and regret and loss…So much loss and so little time to grieve.

Gone, in a heartbeat, that pain as his world hyperfocused on the utter heartbreak. The radiating pain of his heart, beating too hard, his chest tight and breathing stopped. Pain, all encompassing.

Hands clenched around stomach as he drops to his knees, the pain both dull and sharp. Hyperfocused on the feel of the carpet beneath wet pants. Pants wet with her blood, with his blood, with so much blood and pain and water and regret and oh god he was going to die from this feeling of utter hopelessness.

Gut clenching, head on floor, face twisted as sobs break him apart. Slowly, slowly he loses himself. Loses who and what he is, was, could have been. Because there were no more tomorrows, no pleasant yesterdays.

Grief, overwhelming. Hands still wrapped around his stomach as he sobs into the carpet, smelling dust and cleaner and blood. Smelling him, smelling the fear-sweat and the tears. Does grief have a flavor? A taste, smell, touch? Is it a tangible thing, as if someone could bottle the flavor, bottle the scent. Make it real, without regards to reality.

Sobbing bleeds into laughing. Hysteria. Not knowing which was worse. The sobbing started again, keening cries of distress and pain. Guttural. Visceral.

Lurching to unsteady feet as his stomach rebels. He makes it to the sink in the bathroom. Bile and red and pain, no food. No time to eat when one is busy betraying everything they once stood for. Slow keen of distress again, knowing, knowing, knowing. How was it to be? Would they tell his family that he had had an accident? That there was no body to be buried? Would they shoot him, execute him? Would they care enough to execute him?

Slow slide to the floor, knees to chest, arms a tight band across them. Cold, wet, shivering as the material dried colder. Sticky. They wouldn't take his memories. They would never think to let him live, how could they? He had betrayed them, had kept his Lisa a secret until it had killed him.

No time for fun, for light and joy and beauty. No time for anything but pain and slowly dying hope that he could have her back. Whole. Unmade into his perfect Lisa.

Jack was right, he knew. A monster. Jack was the monster, Lisa was the monster, he was the monster. No more sobs. No more tears. Only thoughts, swirling in confusion and panic.

Would they kill him now? Send Tosh or Owen or –god forbid—Gwen? Would it be Jack, eyes stone cold, the killer? The monster, executing the monstrous?

The monster, killed in heartbeats, would live forever as such. No redemption. No future. Sinking slowly into hell; oblivion.

Head slowly banging the cupboard behind him, eyes unfocused as he walks his mind. No safety anywhere, least of all here.

Should he run? Should he try? Was it better, maybe, to let them do it? To watch those hard eyes point that gun to his head. An explosion and no more pain… Would it be just dark? He would know soon enough.

Fear, cold, gut clenching fear. He didn't want to die. Not today. Not at all. Would it be better to kill himself? To take the coward's path? In some cultures it was the way to redemption… To save wounded honor, to salve the wounds caused by unknowing pity.

Could he live, seeing that pity, day to day, for all time? Even if they did take his memories, they were so much of who he was, would it be a mercy, or so much penance that he would never know who she was, who he was, who he could have been.

Would he go insane? Wasn't he already? Slow banging, in rhythm with his heartbeat. Keeping time… Time… so precious, fleeting, over.

Over and over and over. Cold, cramps in unused muscles, clenched tight against the shivering cold of wet and blood. Who would do it? Who would do it? Should he do it?

Slow realization… dawning horror and disgust. Memories of deaths, his responsibility. He was the one who had killed, his monster was not to be held accountable—only himself. Horror, gasping for breath as he recalled so much horror. Pieces of his life, so vivid and detailed he was back up to the sink, hands white as they gripped the counter, dry heaving until his stomach muscles hurt so bad they burned. Fire, filling his world. How to kill that flame, that pain?

He lurched to the kitchen, opened the fridge. Nothing there. Nothing at all, not even condiments. No time for food, for life when she was dying, when he was dying keeping his hopes in the basement. The recesses. No more pain than before, only more frequent. Hunger was long ago finished—no food for the treacherous until the deed was done. The old pains dulled now in the face of so much destruction.

Slamming door shut, a scream ripped from somewhere torn and bloody in his being. Opening cupboards, searching, searching. For what? Half crazed, mad with grief and pain and hatred, for life and coworkers and bosses… For Doctors and Daleks and Cybermen. For life… for pain beyond compare.

Fist, hitting the wall. Pounding a face from memory. Eyes flashing in memory, hard and cold and flirting and hoping… No hope now, not for him.

Hitting, again and again and again, blood and skin and muscle, just meat being ripped apart. Something sparking inside. Grabbing a glass from the open cupboards, he throws it. Smashing and breaking and so sharp and bright in the light of the kitchen. Another, another. Clenching fists around broken glass. Tearing and pain.

Heartache overpowering. The pain in his hands, his knees as he sinks to the floor again. Sobbing, from somewhere so broken he can't see the pieces anymore. Head to ground, arms wrapped around stomach, keeping the feelings inside. Where they belonged. Glass in his cuts, scraping bone and tearing flesh as he sobs.

A noise so faint in his ears, yet so loud he can feel the echoes in his soul. His door, splintered at the locks, open to the night air. Open to his pain.

He doesn't look up, can't look up. This is it, and he can't even meet his death quietly. Can't face his death in the eyes, can't see that happen. Eyes squeezed shut and he breathes shakily. Smell of drying blood everywhere. Destruction so complete, inside and out. Who was he? How was he here still?

No sudden insight, no flashes of peace or pain. Numbness so complete he can't feel the stinging cuts, the throbbing hands. Can't feel the fingers lift his head from its resting place on the glass-covered floor. Eyes still closed. Can't see their face, it won't hurt a bit, because if he dies now, without knowing, he can pretend that it will get better. Hiding. Running from the pain.

Gasps around him as they crunch through, as they break into his broken world again. He can't think that they would all come. He wasn't worth the time. Pleasepleaseplease, he wants to beg. Do it now before it starts again. The heartache.

Chest squeezing again he feels another rush of tears. Eyes still closed he feels the fingers leave his face. Head dropping again, hands no fast enough to stop the crack of bone and glass and wood. A curse, less than gentle hands, roughly handling. Pulled to shaking feet.

Swaying, blood pounding in his ears, but not enough blood. The edges of the brightly-colored darkness bleed white as his legs give out. To weak, he thinks. Always so weak.

"Leave me…please, just go…"

He whispers, he thinks, he shouts, he prays. Is this real anymore? Or did they shoot him and this is all there is? Sigh. Arms wrapped tight around him. Not his arms. Flying, carried like he was when he was a child, after a bad rugby match.

But no broken leg this time, no comfort. No promises that it will all be all right again. Because it can't be. It can never be.

And he gives up, body slack and mind defeated. Useless to resist it.

--

"As much as I say we should let him bleed out, he'll need to go to hospital. He's done a lot of damage. Fixable, unfortunately." The doctor turns away from the still, pale patient. From sluggish bleeding wounds, from skin so pale, tight across ribs and arms and legs. Nothing but bones, meat gone and a bleeding mess on the bed.

"Load him to the back of the SUV. I'll drive him there. You can go now, Owen."

"He shouldn't be saved. He should be executed, or retconned. Why would you save someone like him, after all he's done?"

"This isn't the first time someone has done something stupid for love—and it won't be the last."

What Jack doesn't want to say is that the worst punishment is to let him live with those memories. To see him try to make up for what he'd done, and watch him suffer, like Ianto had promised he would watch Jack suffer and die. Petty, but nothing could compare to living. It was the hardest thing to do.

But Jack would be kidding himself if he didn't want to see that slow smile again. TO start new, and try to see the man as more than just a piece of the furniture, to be used and abused and forgotten.

Owen pulls off his gloves and throws them to the side. Helps Jack pick up the dead weight of the unconscious man, knowing somewhere that for his frame, he should weigh so much more.

"Bloody Tea-boy, making my life difficult."

No reply from the characteristically silent, broody leader as they lay Ianto down on the back seat. Owen slams the door, but before he does, he can see eye blink open again, staring deadly at the ceiling. Slow breaths, almost imperceptible.

Almost, pity comes as he watches the SUV take off, lights flashing as the reckless driver speeds down the road.

He didn't care. Not at all. Nothing worth pitying, nothing worth worrying about. Betrayal has a way of doing that.

--

Slow breaths, the sound of heart monitor and smell of antiseptic. Jack sits, quietly watching the man in the bed. Four hours in surgery, removing glass shards, stitching shut wounds. Bandaged, so small looking now.

Eyes blink open as a low moan reaches his ears. He stays still, watching. He has turned off the morphine drip, wanting Ianto to feel this moment, to remember it with the clarity that only pain can bring.

But the eyes never stray to Jack, never look around. They slip shut, and the heart monitor stumbles for a second, unsure weather to speed up or slow down. Jumping lines that show Jack more than he had wanted to know.

"You are on suspension. I expect you to be at the hub next week."

A broken sigh, stuttering in and out as pain of many guises assail the quiet figure.

"Why?"

Quiet, almost a figment of Jack's overactive imagination.

"Because you still work for me, and I think that you can't be let go until you clean up your mess."

Unspoken consent, unspoken words… I don't deserve to die, You don't deserve my bullet. It would be too good for you.

"I expect you 9 sharp on Monday."

No response. Deathly still, unconscious again. Jack turns the morphine drip back on. Watches as the lines etched on a too-old face slowly settle.

"Sleep."

No need for response. He walks out.

--

No bandages, only two butterfly bandages on a bruised forehead. Nothing to see besides the fading bruises and the small cuts. His hand unbandaged, raw and yet not. He looks up, seeing Jack and Gwen in the glass. He waits, calm and unsure. Hesitating and hating how he is trembling beneath his suit of armor. He is nothing, nothing but the butler, the archivist demoted to watchdog and tea-boy. No chance for redemption. And that is how Jack wants it, he thinks. TO make him suffer this penance till Jack disposes of him. He sees Jack nod so slightly, and takes his cue. Gathers a bin bag, and starts to clean. He knows that when he finishes, there will be no trace of him.

What little there was before has diminished over the last week. How small his life had become. Eat, sleep, dream. Eat, sleep, wake up screaming into his pillows as he dreams the same, blood drenched dreams.

He can't wait to be done with this.

--

Days stretch on without meaning or substance. He doesn't go home, he has no home to go to. Just a cold flat, empty and filled with broken glass, broken sobs, broken lives.

He walks, searching for something, for someone, for what he has no idea. He stands at the edge of the quay, seeking that something. He hears the heavy footsteps approach. No sense in getting tense. This is it, he thinks. The waiting is over.

Breathe deep the smell of darkness, of ocean, of life and death and all of it. Breathe deep and wait for it.

"The hardest thing in this world is to live with the mistakes we've made. Because nothing can hurt us more than we hurt ourselves."

He breathes out. Not this time then. Another time. He knows it will come eventually.

"Go home."

He turns, looks askance as the figure disappears into the fog and gloom. He stays where he is. The sun will rise, and he'll start another day.